Another Year of Becoming: A Birthday Reflection on Growth & Healing

I woke up today feeling quiet. Grateful, yes, but tender in ways I can’t quite describe.

It’s my birthday.

Birthdays used to be about celebration, about checking milestones off a list: What did I accomplish? Who’s still here? Am I where I’m supposed to be?

This year feels different. Heavier and softer at the same time.

Because the truth is, growth doesn’t always look like fireworks. Sometimes it looks like starting over again. It looks like questioning the path you’re on, even when it’s one you built yourself. It looks like holding heartbreak in one hand and hope in the other, realizing both can exist without canceling each other out.

The Quiet Kind of Success

There’s a version of me that still remembers the corporate cubicles, the predictable meetings, the endless calendar invites. She wanted freedom, creativity, and impact, and she got it.

But success came with its own kind of silence. Once the dream becomes your everyday reality, you have to redefine fulfillment again and again. And sometimes I still doubt myself. Not my ability, but my direction. Not my worth, but my timing.

There are moments when I wonder if I’m doing enough, being enough, sharing enough. Moments when the algorithm feels louder than intuition, when everyone’s growth looks faster, shinier, easier.

But then I remember: I’m not here to chase visibility. I’m here to chase meaning.

This morning, before I published this post, I sat on my couch in complete stillness. No phone, no noise. Just me, my thoughts, and the quiet reminder of how far I’ve come… and how much more softly I want to move through the next chapter.

On Heartbreak and Rebuilding

Heartbreak humbles you. It cracks you open so deeply that everything you thought you knew about love, safety, and home gets rewritten.

This past year taught me that endings don’t always arrive with closure, and that healing rarely follows a straight line. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is simply stay… in your body, in your truth, in the discomfort of becoming someone new.

I’ve learned to hold space for the version of me that’s still figuring it out, the one learning to love herself outside of partnership, outside of performance, outside of being “the strong one.”

Because growing up isn’t about arriving. It’s about releasing: the plans, the timelines, the versions of yourself that once made sense but no longer fit.

Becoming Again and Again

When I look back at this past year, including the flights, the campaigns, the speaking gigs, and the quiet moments in between, I see a woman learning to balance ambition with grace.

A woman who is unlearning urgency.
Who is softening her grip on control.
Who is choosing peace over proof.

That, I think, is what adulthood really is: realizing that becoming isn’t a destination. It’s a forever practice. So here’s to another year of choosing joy in the in-between. To trusting that the story is still unfolding exactly as it should. To growing intentionally and without apology.

And to the girl who once believed her voice was too much or her dreams too big, thank you for not giving up.

So, cheers to me. To becoming again: this time with softer hands and a steadier heart. ❤️